This is a Magnetic Cache near the start of the Beryl Burton Cycleway in the beautiful town of Knaresborough. It can be a busy pathway with cyclist and walkers so please take care when locating the cache. Pleas make sure it is replaced back where found carefully to avoid unwanted attention. It is a small cache container so tweezers and a pen will be necessary to extract the log to sign it.
The Beryl Burton cycleway is a traffic-free cycle and walking route from Bilton Village Farm to the Nidd at High Bridge, Knaresborough. It was developed by Sustrans, to enable cyclists to avoid using the very busy A59. The cycle way is named after 7 times World Champion cyclists Beryl Burton who raced for Knaresborough Cycling Club. Burton was a giant in women’s cycling through 50s and 60s, and continued to take medals and titles right into the late 70s.Through her career Burton won scores of titles both nationally and internationally, and was Road Time Trials Councils Best All-Rounder for 25 consecutive years, up until 1983.
She also set a world record for the 12 hour time trial in 1967, beating the men’s record by .73 miles. Burton raced at the same time as the men’s rider Mike McNamara made his attempt. The story goes that Burton not only caught and overtook McNamara, but was kind enough to offer him a Liquorice Allsort as she did so, which he accepted. It would be another two years before the men’s record world beat Burton’s own record which stood for an astonishing 50 years until Sept 21st 2017.
Despite the near endless list of accomplishments that Beryl Burton accumulated through her career, she remained an amateur, riding with her local club despite being offered at least one professional contract. She was an OBE, and in 2009 was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of fame.
There is a car park on the other side of the bridge over the River Nidd but the best way to see the path is to go on bike.